Unit 10 Safeguarding in HSC Organization Sample Assignment

TASK 1 (1A) Recognizing abuse and Self Harm in service users

Abuse and self-harm are two phenomenon which have drawn the attention of many people now a days. These two can be said as the two sides of a single coin. Abuse is defined as a single or repetitive act of unsuitable action by a person to someone who has got a complete trust on that person. This kind of act can cause a lot of mental stress to the one who is facing it. The impact of these kind of acts are sometime so strong that they can make the person to take some extreme steps and harm themselves. Self-harm is defined as the act of giving injury to oneself. The patients usually harm themselves to reduce their inner pain and stress. Self-harm means not only causing an injury to oneself, it can also include the activities like lot of smoking, drinking etc. which causes harm to the body in the long run. This is the reason why at many places self-harm and self-injury are used separately. The extreme case of self-injury is suicide.All these actions basically show the kind of agony and suffering the person is going through(Holmes, 2013). As I have already worked with Stafford Hospital, I can explain the characteristics of the kind of people who are more vulnerable to abuse and also the factors that lead to incidence of abuse of harm.
I observed during my work that the individuals and groups that may be vulnerable to abuse can be divided into four parts. The first group will be of “vulnerable individuals”. This group consists of children or the old aged people who are at some community center or any other such service due to intellectual illness or any other disability. The category of vulnerable individuals also consists of members those who are homeless, drug addicts or sufferers of home violence. The next category is of “vulnerable groups”. This consists of people who belong to specific religion which is a minority or by being a part of any institution where they have been brought forcefully for example prison. The next two categories are related to the researches. There are a number of researches which takes place on these kind of people due to which sometimes the members are vulnerable to abuse. For example, drug addicts. Hence the confidentiality and privacy of these people should be maintained during the researches.
The next important thing which I came to know during my work experience in Stafford Hospital was the risks factors that may lead to incidence of abuse and harm. The risk factors may vary depending on the various cases. The risk factors will be different in case of elders than the risk factors in case of a child abuse. Elders are not able to do their work on their own and hence they have number of needs and requirements. The care takers, family members or the relatives who are taking care of the old aged person get irritated and impatient due to the demands which ultimately leads to an abuse (Mandelstam, 2008). The common risk factors among the care takers are depression, lack of help from the other members of the staff or the family, perception of caretakers that time is wasted in taking care of the old aged people and their inability to handle stress. In case of children, the risk factors are high parental stress, large family size, aggressive nature of the child, personality of the child etc.
I read in a news that in Winterbourne View Care the patients were abused and embarrassed by the staff members of the center.Most of the patients in that care center were facing some learning disabilities due to which it was really tough to communicate with them. So in order to take care of them a lot of patience was required which was missing in the staff members of the Winterbourne View care. After investigation it was found that, there was an old patient of dementia who was asking a care taker to make him sit on some chair again and again. The caretaker was not able to handle his request repeatedly and hence he slapped the patient first and then soaked him in water for a very long time, due to this kind of action the condition of the patient got worse. These patients were aged patients and hence were completely dependent on the care takers for their work. The care takers were rude and hence misbehaved with the patients. After the investigation the guilty care takers were sent to jail.

For complete copy of this unit, order now from Assignment Help